


miserable at best

by aude_sapere



Category: CrankGameplays - Fandom, MarkiplierGAME - Fandom, Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Anxiety, COVID-19, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Ethan is Struggling, Gen, Holidays, Homesickness, Isolation, Loneliness, Sad, Twitch stream, hope you feel better eef, poor mess of a boy, this is just a short drabble i thought of after his stream tonight, we love you!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-08
Updated: 2020-12-08
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:21:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27953012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aude_sapere/pseuds/aude_sapere
Summary: Ethan is homesick and sad about being alone for the holidays. Mark gives him a call.Based entirely on Ethan's stream from tonight, on December 7th, 2020.
Relationships: Mark Fischbach & Ethan Nestor, Mark Fischbach/Ethan Nestor
Comments: 6
Kudos: 189





	miserable at best

**Author's Note:**

> named after the mayday parade song (after seeing a fuckton of people spamming it in the chat)

Ethan stares at the screen long after he’s turned off his PC, eyes glazed and unseeing. His mind is a fog of static, the silence of his recording room pulsing in his ears.

His phone vibrates on his desk, and the sound brings him back into himself. He blinks, reaches for his phone.

He has a few new messages from Kooly, long blocks of text that hurt his eyes to look at. He leaves her on read, drops his phone into his lap and blows out a sigh, gaze falling on his Bob Ross mug. It’s still about halfway full. He debates drinking the rest, getting a nice buzz going (since he put too much whiskey in it anyway), then decides against it. He has to get up early tomorrow anyway, to get a promotional video done before 8 AM.

Huffing another sigh, Ethan looks over at Spencer, curled up in his bed. He’s asleep, little paws twitching as he dreams. It brings a weak smile to Ethan’s face.

“I wonder how you’d like the snow, Bunko,” Ethan says quietly, and he bites his tongue against the sudden onslaught of emotion that threatens to overwhelm him.

 _Fuck_ , he misses Maine. He misses his family and his friends back home. He misses the smell of the sea and the cold and the snow. _God_ , the snow.

California—LA, at least—never drops below forty degrees. It’s never cold here.

He remembers how happy he’d been when he first moved out here, how happy he’d been that he wouldn’t have to drive through the snow anymore, that he wouldn’t ever get cold.

Now, thinking back on it, he feels something like resentment towards his past-self.

 _What were you thinking?_ he reflects bitterly, yanking the blue beanie off his head and dragging his fingers through his hair. _Your family is there. Your childhood is there_.

His phone vibrates in his lap. And doesn’t stop.

Huffing out a breath, more in annoyance this time, he throws his beanie on his keyboard to pick his phone up. He glares at the screen.

Then blinks in surprise when he sees the name that flashes.

After a few seconds of hesitation, he accepts the call, pulling his headphones around his neck and slowly bringing his phone up to his ear.

“Hello?” he says.

“ _Hey, man_.” There’s a certain vibrance missing to Mark’s voice, and it makes Ethan’s stomach twist.

“Hey. Is everything okay?” Ethan asks, and suddenly, he thinks about everything that’s happened in the past week for Mark, thinks about his very recent hospital visit, and he stands up abruptly, panicked. “Are you okay?”

“ _I’m fine_ ,” Mark assures. “ _Don’t worry._ ”

Ethan hesitates, shifting his weight between his feet. “You...you sure?”

“ _Yeah. This isn’t about me, that’s not why I called_.”

Ethan stills.

After a long stretch silence, Mark continues, his voice going soft. “ _Eth, are_ you _doing okay?”_

“Yeah, I’m-” The words die on his lips. He swallows painfully, his throat suddenly tight. “I’m...”

He sighs. “It’s just been a rough day.”

“ _Yeah, I saw._ ”

Ethan is a little surprised by that. “You watched the stream?”

“ _Amy caught the last half of it, had me watch it with her_.”

“Oh.”

Another painfully long silence.

There’s a sound of shuffling on Mark’s end of the call, and he says, “ _Look, man, tomorrow, after you get that video done, you want to come get lunch with Amy and I? We haven’t done that since Unus Annus ended._ ”

“I... sure,” Ethan manages, voice raw. He bites at his lip.

“ _You wanna talk about it?”_ Mark asks gently. “ _It took me a long time to adjust, too, moving from Cincinnati to LA. It’s...you never really stop missing it_.”

Ethan tries to speak, finds it impossible to push a sound past the lump that has formed in his throat. He closes his eyes and rubs a shaky hand over his face.

“I just-” Ethan’s mangled words catch on a sob, a hiccuping exhale that punches from his chest. He stops, presses his fingers into his eyes in a vain attempt to hold it together.

“ _It’s okay, man,_ ” Mark says softly. “ _It’s alright._ ”

And Ethan breaks.

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, this is based on Ethan's twitch stream from December 7th. It started out as a singing stream of Christmas songs, as an attempt to cheer himself up, but it quickly devolved into Ethan talking about YouTube and his fears/hopes for the future. It was really deep and reflective and I cried several times, and THIS MAN DESERVES A HUG, GODDAMN IT.


End file.
